Twenty Five
by Vicki595
Summary: In one way it seems so long, but it's less than twenty-five weeks."


**Twenty-Five**

**Disclaimer:** Totally not mine. If you think they were, the season 2 finale would have had just a _slightly_ different ending.  
**Author's Notes:** This was actually written way before even the spoilers surrounding the finale came out. It just takes me a while to actually post things though. Looking back now, it's kinda ironic. sighs>

* * *

She tells him the only way she can. 

Bluntly.

"Tony, I'm pregnant."

He just gapes at her for a minute, and she _swears_ that if he dares asks how, then she'll shoot him then and there.

"I… uh…" he stammers for a minute. "Okay, what are we going to do about it?"

She could almost laugh. "We? We are going to do nothing. I, on the other hand, am going to make an appointment at the clinic and get an abortion."

"Kate, you can't do that."

This time she does laugh. "Oh, I think I can," she says, moving to go past him. Their lunch break is nearly over and it's time to get back to the office.

He grabs her shoulders and swings her back around to face him. "Kate, listen to me. You can't just kill our baby."

All she can do is stare at him. "This isn't a baby," she hisses. "At the moment, this is just a collection of cells. This is an accident because the condom split and there's that tiny 1 infallibility in the pill. This is something which could cost me my career. This is a mistake which will be fixed."

She shrugs free of his grasp and steps away from him. He throws a handful of bills on the table to cover their costs and rushes to catch her up.

"Kate, why won't you accept that this is something we've created together," he begs. "It's the miracle of life. There's got to be a way around this. We could raise a baby."

"We weren't even in a relationship. We had sex. Period. I don't want a baby, I'm sure you don't want one cramping your style…"

"Well, if I'd have had the choice, no," he admits. "But as there is one now… I don't believe in abortion."

"Then it's a good job that you're not the one that needs to have it." She tries to increase her pace and leave him behind, but his longer legs can match her easily.

"But it's still my child as well. As the father, don't I have any rights?"

"Not really," she tells him simply. "Look, just be thankful that I told you. Legally, I could have just had it and you would never have known." Under her breath she adds "I almost wish I did."

"Look, Kate, if you just keep it, then I'll take full responsibility for it," he says, an almost desperate, pleading note in his voice. "I swear, I'll never ask you for anything else again."

She stops in the middle of the sidewalk and looks at him, disbelief written across her face. "And what am I supposed to do for the next eight months?" she asks. "It's not as if I can just give you it now. It's not as simple as that. I'll be pushing papers for the next eight months, gaining weight and then will have to go through the ordeal of labor just so you can feel better about the mistake you made?" She shakes her head and walks away from him again. "I'm sorry, Tony, I can't do that."

* * *

He doesn't ask when she has made her appointment for; he doesn't want to know. She takes the Wednesday of the next week off and when he sees her empty desk, he doesn't comment and instead tries to bury himself in his work. 

Throughout the day, he tries not to glance across, knowing that she's not there and knowing where she is.

His mind wanders and he mourns for a child that never really was.

When he arrives on Thursday morning, she is at her desk again; her face pale.

He simply nods in greeting at her, not trusting himself to speak and heads across to his desk.

"Tony." She says his name quietly, and he turns around to look at her.

"I couldn't do it," she confesses, her eyes unable to make contact with his.

He leans against his desk, feeling as though his legs can no longer take the weight as he hears that.

"Do you still mean it?" she asks after a moment. "About taking the baby once it's born."

"I… uh… yeah," he replies, his mind whirring as he tries to comprehend just how big of a change this was going to be.

She nods slowly, and he knows that she's still thinking it all through. She's still got time to make another appointment, to go back to the clinic and not be sentimental about it.

"You won't ever have to acknowledge that it's yours," he adds, hoping that she will just agree to it once and for all. "Unless of course, you want to at a later date. I won't stop you from changing your mind."

She nods again and he feels as though a great weight has been lifted off his shoulders.

Her voice is low when she finally speaks. "You're explaining this to Gibbs."

His eyes widen. "No, no, no. Now, wait. That wasn't part of the agreement," he protests. He's not sure why he does, knowing that she's going to get her way.

"I can't be placed under any undue stress," she says simply, rising from her seat. In the corner of his eye, he can see Gibbs heading his way, coffee in hand. At least their boss has already had some caffeine.

He gulps at the fact that he's the one who has to break the news to Gibbs. How they're going to be short an agent in the field for the next year at least. How once this baby was born, he would be leaving them. She hadn't said it, but he knew that it would become part of the deal. One of them was going to have to leave, and as far as she was concerned, she was already sacrificing enough to give him the baby.

He knows that Gibbs will immediately remind him of rule number twelve. They hadn't broken it though. They hadn't been dating. It had just been sex.

* * *

His heart and his mind are racing as he crosses the Potomac into Georgetown. He knows that it's not even ten miles between NCIS Headquarters and Georgetown University Hospital, yet this trip seems to be taking forever. 

He almost wishes Gibbs was driving him there.

The message, which had gone via both Gibbs and Abby, had been short and too the point. Caitlyn Todd had been taken to the emergency room at Georgetown University Hospital and you're listed as her contact.

Nothing more.

He drives mechanically, willing himself to get there faster as his mind conjures up all sort of horrific scenarios.

The constant reminder going through his head is that she's barely twenty-five weeks pregnant.

He knows that baby's can be born three months early and survive, but he never expected it to happen to his.

He parks up and shakes his head. He doesn't know that she's gone into early labor. For all he knows, she's sprained her ankle.

He hopes she's just sprained her ankle.

Outwardly he remains calm as he asks for Caitlyn Todd at the reception desk and the woman checks through her files.

Inside, he's a nervous wreck.

She's not even twenty-five weeks.

She tells him that the doctor's in with his wife now.

He doesn't bother to correct her.

She tells him to take a seat and that someone will come and fetch him shortly. He tries to ask what's happened; why is Kate in here, but all the receptionist does is smiles at him sympathetically and tells him that she can't say.

He doesn't take a seat, instead pacing anxiously across the floor.

Twenty-five weeks.

The woman they send to fetch him is a petite redhead; slightly older than him, but still a looker. He doesn't catch her name, only the fact that she's a doctor, as she tells him to follow her.

For someone so small, she can certainly walk fast and he can't help but think back to the lunchtime when Kate had first broken the news to him.

In one way it seems so long, but it's less than twenty-five weeks.

She leads him to the relatives' room and he feels his heart sink.

He automatically takes a seat when she offers him one, although she chooses to remain standing.

"Ms Todd was brought in forty minutes ago with abdominal and lower back pain and vaginal bleeding," the petite physician begins. "She was going into preterm labor."

She continues to talk, about the placenta, pre-eclampsia and the breech position and of jet ventilators and oscillators, but he barely hears her until she says quietly "I'm so sorry, but your daughter didn't survive."

He closes his eyes and swallows hard, trying not to think of the stuffed bear that's sitting on his sofa. An impulse buy the previous week, in anticipation of his upcoming role.

He mourns his daughter silently for a moment.

From somewhere, he finds his voice and opening his eyes again, his only word is "Kate?"

He reads it in soft brown eyes before she says it.

His only thought is _'Oh, God, _I _killed her.'_


End file.
